Celebrating Mr Li's new "hotel"

So much for a lie-in after my late night – I was woken at 9am having my side poked by Xixi's legs.
A Wu rang at 9am telling me I needed to come and be present at his friend's opening of a new hotel. I didn't have the energy to argue and he picked me and the kids up half an hour later and took us to the breakfast place where we got the kids a sweet pancake each and a cup of dou jiang. He then took them to school before taking me to Mr Li's new hotel, or restaurant as it appeared to be. As it was, all we had to do was light a couple of rolls of bangers that took all of 30 seconds to burn loudly. Then he took me for breakfast of nice juan mian, where a blanket of noodle paste is rolled around some meat and greens and it tastes very nice. Then I was taken back home for 11am in time to do some work before the inevitable siesta! During the drive A Wu complained about the two rolls of bangers costing 130 kuai each and taking only 30 seconds to burn. For once I agreed with him wholeheartedly.


I promised him I'd be around for a meal at the new restaurant around 5.30, and after a few calls I finished my meetings before 6pm and he picked me up. He'd been telling me to "hurry up!" all the time he'd been ringing me, and when we got there we waited for at least twenty minutes for his friends to turn up. Totally typical of all foreigners I know! We met some more bank bosses at the meal and we ate well until what I thought was the end of the meal. Then the beer came...I explained that I was working so managed only half an hour of gan bei'ing before making my excuses and leaving.

Though dreadfully tired due to lack of sleep, when I went to bed I found Leilei in my place. Rather than disturb him I went to sleep in his bed but couldn't sleep until gone 4am. I really hope this doesn't turn out to be a habit.

睡懒觉 – Shuìlǎnjiào – lie-in
爆竹 – Bàozhú – bangers (firecrackers)
尊重 – Zūnzhòng – to respect
热裤 - Rè kù – hotpants (may be too literal a translation but I love the way they are the fashion here…)
Sod it. I can’t think of five words I don’t know just now – I’m going to do this on an ad-hoc basis. The main problem is when people speak to me and use words I don’t know…I’m going to have to start recording them or write down these words….